The attorney representing the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education made a rather inane comment – Jindal doesn’t have a seat at the education policymaking table.

Attorney Phil Preis, representing BESE, said the governor and his administration have no authority to interfere in education and “they don’t have a seat at the table.” Education policy is left to the Legislature and BESE.

Fascinating. I’ve never seen this argument made before. I’m sure Mr. Preis would have zero problem with Jindal sitting at the education table if was in lockstep with BESE. How can you say the person responsible for the execution of state law in the state doesn’t have a seat at the table? The Louisiana Constitution doesn’t suggest it. This is ironic as the adoption of Common Core was marked by executive overreach. In fact, the Louisiana State Legislature didn’t vote on the standards.

So I guess they don’t have a seat at the table except when it suits BESE. We have seen a state board of education make that particular claim when state board members in Oklahoma sued to try to stop that state’s Common Core repeal saying the state legislature didn’t have authority to do what they did.

It is written into the Common Core Standards that once a state has adopted them there are no rights to anyone other than those directly involved with the Standards. That is one of the reasons they are not a good idea – parents, teachers, school administrators and even the Governors do not have a say in the Standards or the Curriculums.

It is not written anywhere as stated. NGA and CCSSO are the owners of the standards and have the copyright (you can find this clearly stated on the CC website under Public License). That means NO ONE but NGA or CCSSO can change anything in the standards. States ARE permitted to add up to 15% extra but cannot take away or change anything in the standards. The added content WILL NOT be included in the assessments so how many states do you think will add the 15%??? So in essence the premise of the statement is correct it is worded poorly. The state does have say in the curriculum but by implementing the standards and assessments aligned with CC the states will have to implement a curriculum that is aligned with CC…….but of course the choice is there but there is no real choice just like there was no real choice on which college and career ready standards the states could implement….it was CC or no money. The schools will have to comply wit ha national curriculum in order to do well on the national assessments.

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